Howell Cobb
Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Education
- Graduated - University of Georgia
- law -
Overview
Howell Cobb was an American and later Confederate political figure. A southern Democrat, Cobb was a five-term member of the United States House of Representatives and the speaker of the House from 1849 to 1851. He also served as the 40th governor of Georgia (1851–1853) and as a secretary of the treasury under President James Buchanan (1857–1860).
Cobb is, however, probably best known as one of the founders of the Confederacy, having served as the President of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States where delegates of the Southern slave states declared that they had seceded from the United States and created the Confederate States of America.
Early Life
Howell Cobb Born September 7, 1815 in Jefferson County, Georgia in 1815, son of Sarah (née Rootes) and John A. Cobb. Cobb was of Welsh American ancestry. He was raised in Athens and attended the University of Georgia, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society. He was admitted to the bar in 1836 and became solicitor general of the western judicial circuit of Georgia.
Cobb was a presidential elector in the 1836 presidential election.
He married Mary Ann Lamar on May 26, 1835. She was a daughter of Colonel Zachariah Lamar, of Milledgeville, from a prominent family with broad connections in the South.[4] Her relatives include Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar and Georgia resident Gazaway Bugg Lamar.[citation needed] They would have eleven children, the first in 1838 and the last in 1861. Several did not survive childhood, including their last, a son who was named after Howell's brother, Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb.
Career
- United States - Former Speaker House of Representatives
